Pros
This is the old-fashioned type of company that you think no longer exists. Turkey at Thanksgiving, ham at Christmas, great company party at Christmas and in the summer, and great benefits like fully paid health insurance, generous profit sharing (both the extra paycheck kind, and the big contribution to your 401k), even scholarships for kids of employees to go to the local community college. The work is interesting and always changing. Every part is different. If you like trying new things and learning new things all the time, it is exciting. Each part that comes in for repair has to be evaluated and get its own repairs. Everything is here under one roof, they don't send parts to vendors, so you get exposure to all the different processes and you learn a lot. The welders and machinists really know what they are doing and there are a lot of highly skilled people. It's also good to know that you are doing something important, keeping the people who fly in airplanes safe. It's very cool compared to other jobs I have had. It's very technical. There is a training department that gives you a lot of information when you start a new job which really helps, so you know why you are doing things. I never worked any place before that spent so much time helping you understand your job. My trainers have all been really helpful. Nobody acts like they don't want to show you anything for fear you will take their job. Everyone is really happy to share their knowledge. Employees are friendly and there is a family feeling. You can apply for positions and move to different jobs.
Cons
You have to pay attention to what you are doing all the time. Every job is complicated. Even if the job looks simple, when you get involved in it you realize that you have to stay focused and pay attention. That is stressful. Especially if you are used to working in a job where you can get in a groove and work on auto-pilot because you can't do that here. On top of the stress to do the job right, there is a lot of stress to get the job done quickly. This seems to be the normal thing in this industry. When we send the parts to the people who build the engines, you get the feeling they are also working hard to do things right and fast. They are waiting to get the parts from us and when we can't ship the parts on time it messes up the customer's schedule. So there is always this pressure.
